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“Shit!” he gasps, rolling me over and holding me on his chest so I don’t hurt myself thrashing on this-blood riddled floor.
As always, I’m completely aware while my body spasms out of control. This cabin is worse than a nightmare, floor to ceiling torture devices, bloody ropes hanging from various parts of the roof, chain wrapped in barbed wire on an exam table. But worse is the stench of the rotting body parts piled in the corner.
Whoever is doing this is cold and twisted, and judging from the different stages of decomposition down to sun-bleached bone, he’s been doing this for quite some time.
“Cricket, oh baby…”
The seizure is going on longer than usual, spurred by the trauma of the day and the shock of watching that poor woman be killed. Jax is holding me steady, stroking my back, determination and fear in his eyes. I try to focus on him, try not to see the scientific equipment on the only clean side of the cabin. Try not to see the wall of polaroids showing all the failed experiments and how far into a wolf they had changed.
When the trembling finally stops, I’m gasping for breath and staring at the floor under a desk. There’s a dog bed there, covered with wolf fur and gnawed human bones. Has he succeeded? Is there a fully transformed experiment out there? The seizure is fading now, and I point to the bed, showing Jax, and his body goes stiff.
“Chase!” he roars.
Chase flies through the cabin door a moment later. “Are you guys okay? Cole went after the gunman alone, the bastard’s running. Ryder’s bleeding has stopped but he still needs to get to a healer as soon as possible—holy shit!”
Jax is sitting now, cradling me in his arms, and he points to the bed and the bones under the desk. With the living scent of the dead pregnant woman slowly fading, the scent of a live wolf is overbearing. Chase crouches down, grimacing as he picks up a bone and studies it.
“Definitely werewolf…” he muses, sounding disgusted. He leans in, hovering over the bed, and strokes a stain on the side. “Female, recently in heat…”
“Why would any wolf choose to stay here?” I try to choke down vomit, but I fail. Jax holds my hair out of my face as I spill the contents of this morning’s breakfast all over the worn wood planks.
“Gabriel wasn’t chained, neither was Corey or even Catherine. Even though this wolf is treated like a dog, she must have some loyalty to them,” Jax says, and I shiver.
“Him, it’s a man. Catherine told me, he’s…a scientist.” I say, pinching my eyes closed and hiding my face in Jax’s chest.
Chase stands and dusts wrings his hands together as if trying to wash off the stench of this place. “Let’s get Ryder back to the house, tell Killian about this place and get him out here. I’ll call in Sniper from Dark Moon to watch his back. Killian is the closest thing to a scientist we have, and maybe he can tell us something about…”
His eyes trail to the dead woman on the porch, her large stomach is completely still. The child has passed as well. I try to smother a sob but I can’t hold a pain like that down. My tears soak my mate’s chest as he carries me out of the cabin.
On wolfback, Jax carries me back to the mansion and Chase carries Ryder. By the time we get there, the place is swarming with wolves from both packs and Cole is standing on the porch, informing everyone what’s happened, including that the gunman got away. His chest is bare, the bullet still embedded in his sternum, and though it must cause him great pain, he doesn’t pay it any heed.
“Brothers, sisters,” he begins. Even I note there’s no longer ‘Silver Dawn or Dark Moon’.
“We’ve been betrayed!”
Howls of misery ring out all around me, and as we walk slowly past Cole he clasps elbows with Ryder and they nod at each other sagely.
“My fellow Alpha, a man I have come to respect as a brother, almost surrendered his life in my defense, taking a shot from Catherine Veiss for me as she helped one of these monsters escape.” He releases Ryder, a sense of closeness between them that everyone can feel, and then he turns back to the crowd. Chase carries Ryder into the house on his way to Killian.
“By pack law, she’s committed a crime punishable by death—betrayal, attack on one's Alpha, attack on a fellow wolf itself. Were she here, I’d be calling a meeting of the highest ranks to decide her fate, like we always have.
“Knowing Ryder as I have these last several months, I’ve realized that some of his ways have benefits that mine can be seen to lack, so I ask you all, as one pack; should we let Catherine live?” He raises a hand, showing how the packs should vote.
Not a single hand rises.
Snarling and snapping and cries of “No, never!” ring all around.
Jax stands next to Cole as a wolf with me on his back, and I’m overwhelmed by the sheer force of the pack's agreement with one another. I feel each mind connecting and agreeing for one purpose.
Traitors must die.
“Catherine must die.” Cole’s words echo my thoughts.
In the crowd I see a flash of red, and I try to focus on the moving color as it bobs through the moving bodies and Cole continues to speak. As it gets closer I recognize my sister, Rachel, weaving through the crowd. Contrary to Ryder’s wishes, she’s been informed, and she walks up the steps with tears in her eyes. She hugs me first, kissing my cheek and petting Jax’s head with silent thanks, and then she turns to Cole.
My heart stops when they lock eyes. She looks thankful and sorry at the same time, and as she stands in front of him, I see the Alpha of the Silver Dawn pack look truly terrified for the first time. He wasn’t scared when fighting the monster, or facing Ryder, but facing Rachel? He swallows hard.
“Let me heal you…” she whispers, and lays her hand over his chest.
